8 july 2019
High school students in Israel must pass an online test promoting racist ideology before being allowed to travel overseas for school trips, legal rights center Adalah has revealed.
Adalah said that the the course, which was created by Israeli education authorities, “requires students to watch a series of videos after which they must take a multiple-choice exam, the correct answers of which promote racist ideology”.
The test includes questions such as “how do Palestinian organisations use digital social networks?” with the correct answer being “encouraging violence”, and asks students to identify the origins of modern anti-Semitism, the correct answer to which is “Muslim organisations” and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Students are told that “anti-Semitism in Europe increased with the immigration of Muslims to Europe… from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan.”
“The course presents a racist ideological perspective that creates an equivalence between Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim identities and violence and terrorism,” Adalah has stated, adding that “Palestinian Arab high school students in the Israeli school system are being asked by this exam to assimilate its racist values.”
Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi wrote to the Education Ministry demanding that the ministry “immediately cancel the mandatory course and exam and allow students to freely participate in overseas school trips with the start of the 2019-2020 school year”, after a school in Nazareth decided to cancel an exchange programme to Sweden instead of allowing its students sit the test which “promotes racist propaganda”.
The letter was written on behalf of Masar Association and the parents of children studying at the association’s Nazareth school.
Shehadeh-Zoabi noted, according to the PNN, that “[Palestinian Arab teenagers] are being forced to internalise humiliating statements about themselves and their families”, which is “outrageous and illegal, adding that “Adalah will take all necessary steps to abolish this course that is repugnantly offensive to Arab citizens and students.”
Adalah said that the the course, which was created by Israeli education authorities, “requires students to watch a series of videos after which they must take a multiple-choice exam, the correct answers of which promote racist ideology”.
The test includes questions such as “how do Palestinian organisations use digital social networks?” with the correct answer being “encouraging violence”, and asks students to identify the origins of modern anti-Semitism, the correct answer to which is “Muslim organisations” and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Students are told that “anti-Semitism in Europe increased with the immigration of Muslims to Europe… from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan.”
“The course presents a racist ideological perspective that creates an equivalence between Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim identities and violence and terrorism,” Adalah has stated, adding that “Palestinian Arab high school students in the Israeli school system are being asked by this exam to assimilate its racist values.”
Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi wrote to the Education Ministry demanding that the ministry “immediately cancel the mandatory course and exam and allow students to freely participate in overseas school trips with the start of the 2019-2020 school year”, after a school in Nazareth decided to cancel an exchange programme to Sweden instead of allowing its students sit the test which “promotes racist propaganda”.
The letter was written on behalf of Masar Association and the parents of children studying at the association’s Nazareth school.
Shehadeh-Zoabi noted, according to the PNN, that “[Palestinian Arab teenagers] are being forced to internalise humiliating statements about themselves and their families”, which is “outrageous and illegal, adding that “Adalah will take all necessary steps to abolish this course that is repugnantly offensive to Arab citizens and students.”
US Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, has revealed the US administration’s requirements for reopening the PLO’s representative office in Washington.
“The PLO office in Washington can be reopened once negotiations are resumed,” Greenblatt said. “Palestinians can contact the White House directly without having to travel to the US embassy after the closure of the US Consulate in Jerusalem.”
“The PLO office could have been kept open if it was involved in a peace process,” Greenblatt told local al-Ayyam newspaper. “Because President Abbas threatened Israel with going to the ICC, we had to close it.”
He said that the US were not able to sign the resolution because after the declaration of Jerusalem, President Abbas boycotted us, and it was impossible for us to actually sign a decision on the organization’s office because you did not participate in the peace process. According to his speech.
“Maybe that can be fixed. I am not a lawyer now, I have to check him out, when you participate in the peace process.”
Regarding the closure of the consulate in Jerusalem, he said: “We have a responsibility to American taxpayers. If we have a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem because we have now recognized that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the presence of two diplomatic missions in Jerusalem is a waste of money from taxpayers. “
“What we have done is that we have established a unit for Palestinian affairs at the embassy, the same group of people who have the same knowledge of dealing with the Palestinians and are in the same building. The integration took place in the embassy, so I know it is different, but I understand that in this regard The link between the US government and the Palestinian people will be the same as before.
“More importantly, if someone is uncomfortable dealing with the embassy from the Palestinian side, anyone is welcome to contact me directly at the White House, and they do not have to deal with the embassy,” Greenblatt said.
In another context, Greenblatt said that the US administration did not decide when to publish the political vision of the solution. “We did not decide when to make the political vision. We consider the Israeli elections to decide whether to launch them before or after the elections before or after the formation of the government. President Trump decision soon.
But he said that the American team understands that things will not be easy. “It will not be a surprise,” he said. “Anyone who believes that we can have a plan that everyone accepts immediately does not understand this conflict, so we are quite ready for a very difficult launch and impossible to reverse.”
“We understand that no one can come up with a plan that everyone accepts, but I think the only way to overcome this conflict is for everyone to agree that no one can make a perfect plan, and the parties have to go into the room together and sit down and talk about each issue and negotiate On every issue until the agreement. “
The US administration faced great difficulties in bringing participants to the economic workshop in Bahrain, prompting Greenblatt to stress that if the Palestinian and Israeli sides did not reach the negotiating room, things would fail.
“But if we do not get to the room because people are not ready to enter, that’s what happened with the Palestinian side in Bahrain, nothing will happen and we understand that,” Greenblatt said.
“This will not be the first time that the peace process has failed. If that happens, the idea that the United States, the United Nations or the European Union has some magic formula to make this conflict disappear is not true, so people either accept the fact that they need to go in and do the hard work of whether they can get out of it. The other side or want to be unwilling to enter the room, this is the reality and we understand that. “
“The second part of the Bahrain workshop now is that we will receive feedback from all participants, that is to say all countries and all businessmen, I hope so many others, and of course we would like to get feedback from the Palestinian leadership, We think it will be important comments. “
“We do not want to make it a political reaction, in the sense that the political comments will come to the political plan and be compatible with each other, but I think the Palestinian leadership must understand that, although they say otherwise, the conference represented a great success, “People believe in the Palestinian people, they want to help the Palestinian people, and they can create an incredible economy for the Palestinian people if we reach peace, and I do not want to miss this opportunity for the Palestinian leadership.”
“Separately, we want to receive reactions from ordinary Palestinians, so we will be inviting invitations. There may be one idea: to invite Palestinian journalists to the White House or to be somewhere neutral, and to make our team make direct offers to the Palestinian media And make the Palestinian media able to monitor and explain the meaning of the plan for people. “
“The economic plan is not final, we have done a lot of work on it, Jared Kouchner and many other members of the administration, but we know it still needs to work and more observations we receive, especially from the Palestinians, then the plan becomes better.”
“We are not trying to impose anything on the Palestinians, but if it happens over the coming months when we announce the political plan, if the Palestinians and the Israelis can get into a room together and resolve this process, that’s what they can be waiting for, I know that some people on the Palestinian side say that we are trying to settle the national cause of the Palestinian people. We are not, but we firmly believe that without a serious economic plan, there will be no successful peace agreement. “
Asked about his continued Twitter comments against the Palestinians, Greenblatt said: “I do not condemn the Palestinians, but some of the statements of the leadership, some of which are not everything, and I have to get things out of the text about terrorism, glorification of terrorists, Official American or talk about the plan, and this is very different from the Israelis who have no comparison in this aspect. There was a Palestinian woman who was killed by stones that an Israeli had allegedly thrown at me, but I was turned away. And the case of the rabbi who made racist statements about the Palestinians, I talked about it. “
“But what I’m not doing is getting involved in politics. People are asking me: Why do not I Twitter against Netanyahu if he makes a statement? It is a political statement that I will not interfere in. I do not interfere with President Abbas’s political statements. I am speaking only when it directly affects peace efforts, terrorism or such things. “
“The PLO office in Washington can be reopened once negotiations are resumed,” Greenblatt said. “Palestinians can contact the White House directly without having to travel to the US embassy after the closure of the US Consulate in Jerusalem.”
“The PLO office could have been kept open if it was involved in a peace process,” Greenblatt told local al-Ayyam newspaper. “Because President Abbas threatened Israel with going to the ICC, we had to close it.”
He said that the US were not able to sign the resolution because after the declaration of Jerusalem, President Abbas boycotted us, and it was impossible for us to actually sign a decision on the organization’s office because you did not participate in the peace process. According to his speech.
“Maybe that can be fixed. I am not a lawyer now, I have to check him out, when you participate in the peace process.”
Regarding the closure of the consulate in Jerusalem, he said: “We have a responsibility to American taxpayers. If we have a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem because we have now recognized that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the presence of two diplomatic missions in Jerusalem is a waste of money from taxpayers. “
“What we have done is that we have established a unit for Palestinian affairs at the embassy, the same group of people who have the same knowledge of dealing with the Palestinians and are in the same building. The integration took place in the embassy, so I know it is different, but I understand that in this regard The link between the US government and the Palestinian people will be the same as before.
“More importantly, if someone is uncomfortable dealing with the embassy from the Palestinian side, anyone is welcome to contact me directly at the White House, and they do not have to deal with the embassy,” Greenblatt said.
In another context, Greenblatt said that the US administration did not decide when to publish the political vision of the solution. “We did not decide when to make the political vision. We consider the Israeli elections to decide whether to launch them before or after the elections before or after the formation of the government. President Trump decision soon.
But he said that the American team understands that things will not be easy. “It will not be a surprise,” he said. “Anyone who believes that we can have a plan that everyone accepts immediately does not understand this conflict, so we are quite ready for a very difficult launch and impossible to reverse.”
“We understand that no one can come up with a plan that everyone accepts, but I think the only way to overcome this conflict is for everyone to agree that no one can make a perfect plan, and the parties have to go into the room together and sit down and talk about each issue and negotiate On every issue until the agreement. “
The US administration faced great difficulties in bringing participants to the economic workshop in Bahrain, prompting Greenblatt to stress that if the Palestinian and Israeli sides did not reach the negotiating room, things would fail.
“But if we do not get to the room because people are not ready to enter, that’s what happened with the Palestinian side in Bahrain, nothing will happen and we understand that,” Greenblatt said.
“This will not be the first time that the peace process has failed. If that happens, the idea that the United States, the United Nations or the European Union has some magic formula to make this conflict disappear is not true, so people either accept the fact that they need to go in and do the hard work of whether they can get out of it. The other side or want to be unwilling to enter the room, this is the reality and we understand that. “
“The second part of the Bahrain workshop now is that we will receive feedback from all participants, that is to say all countries and all businessmen, I hope so many others, and of course we would like to get feedback from the Palestinian leadership, We think it will be important comments. “
“We do not want to make it a political reaction, in the sense that the political comments will come to the political plan and be compatible with each other, but I think the Palestinian leadership must understand that, although they say otherwise, the conference represented a great success, “People believe in the Palestinian people, they want to help the Palestinian people, and they can create an incredible economy for the Palestinian people if we reach peace, and I do not want to miss this opportunity for the Palestinian leadership.”
“Separately, we want to receive reactions from ordinary Palestinians, so we will be inviting invitations. There may be one idea: to invite Palestinian journalists to the White House or to be somewhere neutral, and to make our team make direct offers to the Palestinian media And make the Palestinian media able to monitor and explain the meaning of the plan for people. “
“The economic plan is not final, we have done a lot of work on it, Jared Kouchner and many other members of the administration, but we know it still needs to work and more observations we receive, especially from the Palestinians, then the plan becomes better.”
“We are not trying to impose anything on the Palestinians, but if it happens over the coming months when we announce the political plan, if the Palestinians and the Israelis can get into a room together and resolve this process, that’s what they can be waiting for, I know that some people on the Palestinian side say that we are trying to settle the national cause of the Palestinian people. We are not, but we firmly believe that without a serious economic plan, there will be no successful peace agreement. “
Asked about his continued Twitter comments against the Palestinians, Greenblatt said: “I do not condemn the Palestinians, but some of the statements of the leadership, some of which are not everything, and I have to get things out of the text about terrorism, glorification of terrorists, Official American or talk about the plan, and this is very different from the Israelis who have no comparison in this aspect. There was a Palestinian woman who was killed by stones that an Israeli had allegedly thrown at me, but I was turned away. And the case of the rabbi who made racist statements about the Palestinians, I talked about it. “
“But what I’m not doing is getting involved in politics. People are asking me: Why do not I Twitter against Netanyahu if he makes a statement? It is a political statement that I will not interfere in. I do not interfere with President Abbas’s political statements. I am speaking only when it directly affects peace efforts, terrorism or such things. “
7 july 2019
June has witnessed a decline in the number of violations against media freedoms in Palestine, compared to May.
The Palestinian Center for Development & Media Freedoms has monitored, during June, a total of 28 attacks against media freedoms in Palestine, 27 of which were committed by the Israeli Occupation while only one attack was committed by the Palestinian authorities.
May has witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of attacks which amounted to 84, and this high rise at the time is attributed to the closure of 65 pages and accounts of journalists by the Facebook.
The number of Israeli attacks against media freedoms in Palestine increased in June compared with the previous month, jumping from 18 in May to 27 in June, five of which were committed in Gaza Strip while 22 in the West Bank.
As usual, plenty of the Israeli attacks registered in this month fall under the serious attacks threatening the lives of journalists, especially those registered in Gaza Strip, most prominently: the injury of the photojournalist Nidal Shafiq Ishataya (two metal gunshots), the injury of the freelance journalist Saleh Abedrabu Abdullah Qarmout (direct gas bomb at the head-above the ear), the injury of the volunteer journalist Ikhlas Al-Qrenawi (gunshot in her foot), the injury of Mohammad Kassab (direct gas bomb in the neck), the injury of the photojournalist Raed Yousef Abu Mathkour (gunshot in the leg), the arrest of the journalist amer Tawfiq Abu Halil upon raiding his house at dawn, breaking into the house of the freelance journalist Mohammad Sharaf Al-Shuaibe, summon and detain him under the pretext that he did not respond to a formed call by the occupation intelligence, in addition to the deliberate attack of the occupation soldiers to the gathering of journalists while they were covering a demonstration at Al-Bireh entrance by gas bombs, resulting in the injury of 17 female/male journalists with severe suffocation and vomiting.
This is in addition to issuing a traffic ticket of 1000 NIS to the photojournalist Rajai Al-Khatib deliberately claiming that he “endangered the life of a police officer” while he was covering the clashes in Issawiya in occupied Jerusalem.
In an unusual precedent, July has not witnessed any Palestinian violation against media freedoms in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by the official authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The only Palestinian violation recorded this month was the exposure of the director of investigative journalism unit of “Watan” Network, the journalist Nizar Habash, to several telephone threats following the preparation and dissemination of the investigate on a beauty salon and its practices by the Network given that these practices have caused physical and bodily harm to some women.
This is the second month that has not witnessed any violation in the West Bank in particular, which promises a positive direction for the new Palestinian government, which has declared its commitment to protect press freedoms since its establishment about three months ago.
The Palestinian Center for Development & Media Freedoms has monitored, during June, a total of 28 attacks against media freedoms in Palestine, 27 of which were committed by the Israeli Occupation while only one attack was committed by the Palestinian authorities.
May has witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of attacks which amounted to 84, and this high rise at the time is attributed to the closure of 65 pages and accounts of journalists by the Facebook.
The number of Israeli attacks against media freedoms in Palestine increased in June compared with the previous month, jumping from 18 in May to 27 in June, five of which were committed in Gaza Strip while 22 in the West Bank.
As usual, plenty of the Israeli attacks registered in this month fall under the serious attacks threatening the lives of journalists, especially those registered in Gaza Strip, most prominently: the injury of the photojournalist Nidal Shafiq Ishataya (two metal gunshots), the injury of the freelance journalist Saleh Abedrabu Abdullah Qarmout (direct gas bomb at the head-above the ear), the injury of the volunteer journalist Ikhlas Al-Qrenawi (gunshot in her foot), the injury of Mohammad Kassab (direct gas bomb in the neck), the injury of the photojournalist Raed Yousef Abu Mathkour (gunshot in the leg), the arrest of the journalist amer Tawfiq Abu Halil upon raiding his house at dawn, breaking into the house of the freelance journalist Mohammad Sharaf Al-Shuaibe, summon and detain him under the pretext that he did not respond to a formed call by the occupation intelligence, in addition to the deliberate attack of the occupation soldiers to the gathering of journalists while they were covering a demonstration at Al-Bireh entrance by gas bombs, resulting in the injury of 17 female/male journalists with severe suffocation and vomiting.
This is in addition to issuing a traffic ticket of 1000 NIS to the photojournalist Rajai Al-Khatib deliberately claiming that he “endangered the life of a police officer” while he was covering the clashes in Issawiya in occupied Jerusalem.
In an unusual precedent, July has not witnessed any Palestinian violation against media freedoms in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by the official authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The only Palestinian violation recorded this month was the exposure of the director of investigative journalism unit of “Watan” Network, the journalist Nizar Habash, to several telephone threats following the preparation and dissemination of the investigate on a beauty salon and its practices by the Network given that these practices have caused physical and bodily harm to some women.
This is the second month that has not witnessed any violation in the West Bank in particular, which promises a positive direction for the new Palestinian government, which has declared its commitment to protect press freedoms since its establishment about three months ago.
Prime minister's son causes outrage among Ethiopian-Israeli activists, MKs, who call him 'a spoiled boy who lives off the public,' spreader of fake news; 'it's easy being a virtual bully, far more difficult to go out and protest'
Yair Netanyahu, son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stirred a commotion over the weekend when he said in a tweet that the Ethiopian community's wave of protests was "funded by German money."
"Everything that happened this week was fueled by the New Israel Fund and the Standing Together organization with the use of German money," said the prime minister's son, referring to aid organizations that often support the Ethiopian Israeli cause.
"I wonder what would have happened if the Israeli government funded a German organization that burns police vehicles, blocks roads and acts violently in the streets of Berlin," said young Netanyahu.
Many Ethiopian descendants around the country were outraged by the tweet. "No Yair, everything that happened this week was fueled by racism and oppression that my community has been going through for many years," tweeted Avi Yalo, one of the protest's leaders.
"You can keep spreading lies about the New Israel Fund and about German money, but you know it has no connection what so ever to reality. Our struggle, which you cannot understand from the bubble you live in, is a daily struggle for an equal, secure life."
Itzik Time, another leader of the protests, also responded with a fierce tweet: "I wish we had had funding for protests, we would have protested for a whole week," he said.
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata from the Blue and White Party said in response that "This spoiled demagogue will never be able to understand the weak. Sit quietly, don’t stir cheap and false politics over the back of a community that went out to protest from the bottom of its aching heart."
"Where were you during the rightful protests against police violence and the killing of Solomon Tekah? Where were you during the protests after the killing of Yehuda Biadga?" tweeted Alon Lee Green, chair of the Standing Together movement.
"It's easy sitting back in an airconditioned room and being a virtual bully. It's far more difficult protesting for justice and against a government who hurts its citizens," he said.
Blue and White MK Gadi Yevarkan, who is of Ethiopian descent, also slammed Yair Netanyahu: "Those young teens on the streets have contributed to this country a thousand times more than did, you a rich boy who lives on the backs of the public."
"I didn't expect you to understand what discrimination is, since you grew up in a home that is a factory house for discrimination," said Yevarkan.
"Go and learn about values, respect, Zionism and the love of the motherland from Ethiopian Israelis," he concluded.
Yair Netanyahu, son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stirred a commotion over the weekend when he said in a tweet that the Ethiopian community's wave of protests was "funded by German money."
"Everything that happened this week was fueled by the New Israel Fund and the Standing Together organization with the use of German money," said the prime minister's son, referring to aid organizations that often support the Ethiopian Israeli cause.
"I wonder what would have happened if the Israeli government funded a German organization that burns police vehicles, blocks roads and acts violently in the streets of Berlin," said young Netanyahu.
Many Ethiopian descendants around the country were outraged by the tweet. "No Yair, everything that happened this week was fueled by racism and oppression that my community has been going through for many years," tweeted Avi Yalo, one of the protest's leaders.
"You can keep spreading lies about the New Israel Fund and about German money, but you know it has no connection what so ever to reality. Our struggle, which you cannot understand from the bubble you live in, is a daily struggle for an equal, secure life."
Itzik Time, another leader of the protests, also responded with a fierce tweet: "I wish we had had funding for protests, we would have protested for a whole week," he said.
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata from the Blue and White Party said in response that "This spoiled demagogue will never be able to understand the weak. Sit quietly, don’t stir cheap and false politics over the back of a community that went out to protest from the bottom of its aching heart."
"Where were you during the rightful protests against police violence and the killing of Solomon Tekah? Where were you during the protests after the killing of Yehuda Biadga?" tweeted Alon Lee Green, chair of the Standing Together movement.
"It's easy sitting back in an airconditioned room and being a virtual bully. It's far more difficult protesting for justice and against a government who hurts its citizens," he said.
Blue and White MK Gadi Yevarkan, who is of Ethiopian descent, also slammed Yair Netanyahu: "Those young teens on the streets have contributed to this country a thousand times more than did, you a rich boy who lives on the backs of the public."
"I didn't expect you to understand what discrimination is, since you grew up in a home that is a factory house for discrimination," said Yevarkan.
"Go and learn about values, respect, Zionism and the love of the motherland from Ethiopian Israelis," he concluded.
6 july 2019
The Facebook logo is seen on a broken mobile phone screen in Paris in 2018
I recently came across a post on Facebook, which stated: “When Facebook is gone, and you can no longer click the ‘Like’ button, will you still consider yourself an activist?”
Simple as the question seemed, it raised many important questions. Can one be an activist simply because they “like”, or maybe even repost, a political statement made on social media? Are there “activists” whose activism is limited to social media?
But also, how much of today’s effective activism is indeed taking place on social media? Can such activism be dismissed, because the forum also allows users to post photos of their culinary fails, or of their dogs and cats in embarrassing costumes?
The 'Facebook revolution'
There is no denying that Facebook, Twitter, and - to a lesser degree - other social media platforms, have been instrumental in large-scale organizing and mobilizing, so much so that Egypt’s 2011 uprising was dubbed “the Facebook revolution”. As one protester put it: “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”
There is no doubt that censorship occurs on these otherwise public sites - both internally, as “community policing”, and externally - to ensure the platform is making a profit.
Facebook is a for-profit corporation whose revenue (estimated at more than $55bn in 2018) comes primarily from ads. Consequently, “Facebook jail” is a familiar expression for many activists who post about progressive causes that challenge “the establishment”, from African Americans denouncing white supremacy to, of course, pro-justice activists exposing Zionism.
The most recent example is Richard Silverstein, an occasional contributor to Middle East Eye, who was recently banned from Facebook for a week.
Silverstein had shared an article from Al-Monitor about an Israeli court determining that settlers had forged signatures to obtain Palestinian lands, and that the land be returned to its rightful owners. Silverstein had reposted the article, with one comment: “Israeli settlers steal the land.”
As he notes in a blog post on his personal website: “Apparently, the Israeli troll army is active on Facebook and organized a mass reporting swarm of the post which labeled it hate speech. Enough reports were received that the post was removed and my account suspended.”
Facebook defines hate speech as “as a direct attack on people based on … race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability. We also provide some protections for immigration status. We define attack as violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation.”
Defining hate speech
Silverstein appealed to Facebook, using their own definition of “hate speech”, to argue that his post does not fit the criteria, since he was not directly attacking Israeli settlers as much as reporting a fact the Israeli court itself agrees upon: these particular settlers had used fraudulent means to obtain the land.
This is not Silverstein’s first suspension. As he told MEE: “I have been suspended by Twitter and Facebook a number of times. I’ve also had individual posts censored without being suspended.” On one occasion, he said, an Israeli professor at a university that specialises in training engineers for the Israeli air force organised “a mass reporting of my FB account, claiming it was fake”.
In other cases, Silverstein said he was suspended by Facebook for posting a Hamas-circulated flyer featuring pictures of Israeli commandos who invaded Gaza; and by Twitter for criticizing an Israeli settler leader who organised military-style security patrols in settlements, and who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian. “There were a number of other suspensions,” Silverstein said. “But those are the ones I primarily remember.”
Quora, a relatively new platform, is also heavily monitored, and has permanently banned Rima Najjar, a retired Palestinian academic who was a frequent contributor. Late last month, Najjar took legal action against Quora, alleging that the site banned her for “writing while Palestinian”, after documenting that posts very similar to hers, but contributed by non-Palestinians, were not taken down.
According to Najjar’s lawyer, Quora asserted that Najjar’s criticism of Zionism was “hate speech”, based on a number of reader comments to that effect. In subsequent correspondence with a Quora staff member, Najjar says she was told the ban was “the result of an algorithm based on multiple determinations that an author violated policy”. Najjar’s lawyer, however, pointed out that “human beings at Quora reviewed the propriety of her permanent ban and determined to keep it in place”.
Israel's online army
Such “algorithms” are a result of the fact that Israel pays an army of trolls to flag pro-Palestine posts and report them as offensive.
As early as 2013, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced it would give scholarships to students “to combat antisemitism and calls to boycott Israel online”, and that the students’ messages “would parallel statements by government officials”.
This army of trolls is clearly very active in monitoring and reporting posts by writers critical of Israel. Sadly, the administrators of these social media sites appear to have either little critical judgement of their own, or little agency. If enough users report a post as offensive, they will take it down, because the platform’s revenue depends on the number of users, and it is better to ban one account than to “offend” hundreds.
Last year, during Gaza’s Great March of Return, I myself had a post removed from Facebook, in which I had noted: “I am really tired of the qualification ‘women and children.’ Israel’s massacres, bombings, killings, are apparently more criminal because among the victims were ‘women and children.’ Apparently, it would be for Israel OK to kill, kill, kill, so long as all the victims are men.”
I was informed that my post violated Facebook’s criteria. I appealed the decision to remove it, explaining that it included neither hate speech nor incitement to violence, but rather expressed frustration at the suggestion that young men are a fair target. It was never allowed back.
Just as I was writing this piece, I reposted the same statement, but this time, without naming Israel. My post is still up, because the trolls have not scanned the name of their patron and therefore not flagged my post as hate speech.
'The master's tools'
In her important essay dating back to 1979, the late Audre Lorde tells women trying to fit into what society deems acceptable that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. Yet, she continues: “And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
Facebook, Quora, Twitter, and other for-profit social media platforms are, first and foremost, “the master’s tools”. But I still use Facebook, and Najjar wants her Quora ban revoked, and Silverstein wants his Facebook account reinstated.
In a tech-savvy, even tech-dependent world, social media is a very useful tool - so when we are deprived of it, we are at a disadvantage. But we do not stop organizing for justice. Activism for Palestinian rights is rooted in a real awareness of the issues. It is grassroots activism. There are no paid trolls; most of us spend money to go places and educate crowds.
Students stand to lose, not gain, from supporting Palestine - yet, they keep doing it. So our activism will not stop, just because Facebook takes down our posts.
One question we could ask, rather than the one I opened with, would be: “When you are no longer paid to troll us on Facebook, will you still be defending Israel?”
- Nada Elia is a Diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator, currently working on her second book, Who You Callin' "Demographic Threat?" Notes from the Global Intifada. A professor of Gender and Global Studies (retired), and is a member of the Steering Collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). Her article appeared in the Middle East Eye.
I recently came across a post on Facebook, which stated: “When Facebook is gone, and you can no longer click the ‘Like’ button, will you still consider yourself an activist?”
Simple as the question seemed, it raised many important questions. Can one be an activist simply because they “like”, or maybe even repost, a political statement made on social media? Are there “activists” whose activism is limited to social media?
But also, how much of today’s effective activism is indeed taking place on social media? Can such activism be dismissed, because the forum also allows users to post photos of their culinary fails, or of their dogs and cats in embarrassing costumes?
The 'Facebook revolution'
There is no denying that Facebook, Twitter, and - to a lesser degree - other social media platforms, have been instrumental in large-scale organizing and mobilizing, so much so that Egypt’s 2011 uprising was dubbed “the Facebook revolution”. As one protester put it: “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”
There is no doubt that censorship occurs on these otherwise public sites - both internally, as “community policing”, and externally - to ensure the platform is making a profit.
Facebook is a for-profit corporation whose revenue (estimated at more than $55bn in 2018) comes primarily from ads. Consequently, “Facebook jail” is a familiar expression for many activists who post about progressive causes that challenge “the establishment”, from African Americans denouncing white supremacy to, of course, pro-justice activists exposing Zionism.
The most recent example is Richard Silverstein, an occasional contributor to Middle East Eye, who was recently banned from Facebook for a week.
Silverstein had shared an article from Al-Monitor about an Israeli court determining that settlers had forged signatures to obtain Palestinian lands, and that the land be returned to its rightful owners. Silverstein had reposted the article, with one comment: “Israeli settlers steal the land.”
As he notes in a blog post on his personal website: “Apparently, the Israeli troll army is active on Facebook and organized a mass reporting swarm of the post which labeled it hate speech. Enough reports were received that the post was removed and my account suspended.”
Facebook defines hate speech as “as a direct attack on people based on … race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability. We also provide some protections for immigration status. We define attack as violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation.”
Defining hate speech
Silverstein appealed to Facebook, using their own definition of “hate speech”, to argue that his post does not fit the criteria, since he was not directly attacking Israeli settlers as much as reporting a fact the Israeli court itself agrees upon: these particular settlers had used fraudulent means to obtain the land.
This is not Silverstein’s first suspension. As he told MEE: “I have been suspended by Twitter and Facebook a number of times. I’ve also had individual posts censored without being suspended.” On one occasion, he said, an Israeli professor at a university that specialises in training engineers for the Israeli air force organised “a mass reporting of my FB account, claiming it was fake”.
In other cases, Silverstein said he was suspended by Facebook for posting a Hamas-circulated flyer featuring pictures of Israeli commandos who invaded Gaza; and by Twitter for criticizing an Israeli settler leader who organised military-style security patrols in settlements, and who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian. “There were a number of other suspensions,” Silverstein said. “But those are the ones I primarily remember.”
Quora, a relatively new platform, is also heavily monitored, and has permanently banned Rima Najjar, a retired Palestinian academic who was a frequent contributor. Late last month, Najjar took legal action against Quora, alleging that the site banned her for “writing while Palestinian”, after documenting that posts very similar to hers, but contributed by non-Palestinians, were not taken down.
According to Najjar’s lawyer, Quora asserted that Najjar’s criticism of Zionism was “hate speech”, based on a number of reader comments to that effect. In subsequent correspondence with a Quora staff member, Najjar says she was told the ban was “the result of an algorithm based on multiple determinations that an author violated policy”. Najjar’s lawyer, however, pointed out that “human beings at Quora reviewed the propriety of her permanent ban and determined to keep it in place”.
Israel's online army
Such “algorithms” are a result of the fact that Israel pays an army of trolls to flag pro-Palestine posts and report them as offensive.
As early as 2013, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced it would give scholarships to students “to combat antisemitism and calls to boycott Israel online”, and that the students’ messages “would parallel statements by government officials”.
This army of trolls is clearly very active in monitoring and reporting posts by writers critical of Israel. Sadly, the administrators of these social media sites appear to have either little critical judgement of their own, or little agency. If enough users report a post as offensive, they will take it down, because the platform’s revenue depends on the number of users, and it is better to ban one account than to “offend” hundreds.
Last year, during Gaza’s Great March of Return, I myself had a post removed from Facebook, in which I had noted: “I am really tired of the qualification ‘women and children.’ Israel’s massacres, bombings, killings, are apparently more criminal because among the victims were ‘women and children.’ Apparently, it would be for Israel OK to kill, kill, kill, so long as all the victims are men.”
I was informed that my post violated Facebook’s criteria. I appealed the decision to remove it, explaining that it included neither hate speech nor incitement to violence, but rather expressed frustration at the suggestion that young men are a fair target. It was never allowed back.
Just as I was writing this piece, I reposted the same statement, but this time, without naming Israel. My post is still up, because the trolls have not scanned the name of their patron and therefore not flagged my post as hate speech.
'The master's tools'
In her important essay dating back to 1979, the late Audre Lorde tells women trying to fit into what society deems acceptable that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. Yet, she continues: “And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
Facebook, Quora, Twitter, and other for-profit social media platforms are, first and foremost, “the master’s tools”. But I still use Facebook, and Najjar wants her Quora ban revoked, and Silverstein wants his Facebook account reinstated.
In a tech-savvy, even tech-dependent world, social media is a very useful tool - so when we are deprived of it, we are at a disadvantage. But we do not stop organizing for justice. Activism for Palestinian rights is rooted in a real awareness of the issues. It is grassroots activism. There are no paid trolls; most of us spend money to go places and educate crowds.
Students stand to lose, not gain, from supporting Palestine - yet, they keep doing it. So our activism will not stop, just because Facebook takes down our posts.
One question we could ask, rather than the one I opened with, would be: “When you are no longer paid to troll us on Facebook, will you still be defending Israel?”
- Nada Elia is a Diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator, currently working on her second book, Who You Callin' "Demographic Threat?" Notes from the Global Intifada. A professor of Gender and Global Studies (retired), and is a member of the Steering Collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). Her article appeared in the Middle East Eye.
22 june 2019
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The views of Katie Hopkins represent a particularly British form of fascism.
Similar in some ways to US President Donald Trump, she rose to national fame through reality TV. Both appeared on the same franchise, The Apprentice – a particularly crass example of the genre. Hopkins appeared as a contestant in the UK version of the show. She is naturally a supporter of President Trump and of his racism; Trump, for his part, has returned the compliment. With his usual disregard for the truth, he has claimed she is a “respected columnist”. Her time spewing violently anti-Muslim garbage for the Sun and the Mail Online mercifully lasted only a few short years. It’s an indicator of just how extreme she is that even two of Britain’s most racist publications found her too much. Her Sun contract ended in 2015 after public disgust at a particularly bad column, in which she attacked the (often Muslim) refugees and migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, labelling them “cockroaches”. Her openly genocidal language continued with a tweet in which she called for a “final solution” for Muslims – an invocation of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews. This thankfully led to the end of her LBC radio show. None of this is legitimate free speech – it is open incitement to violence and even to genocide. |
Yet as with so many of the modern fascist far-right, Katie Hopkins is a big fan of Israel.
Earlier this month, Hopkins appeared on an Israeli TV channel openly calling for the expulsion of the almost seven million Palestinians who now live in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The i24 News channel shamefully gave this fascist a platform to call for Israel to “remove the people who don’t belong here” – the indigenous people of Palestine. This must be understood as a call for ethnic cleansing, though it more likely constitutes incitement to genocide.
Like other fascists, Hopkins has also propagated anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, tweeting that “Soros NGOs” are to blame for critical media coverage of Israel. This was a reference to Jewish billionaire George Soros, who has donated billions to his foundations supporting liberal and anti-communist causes.
As I explained in a feature for the Electronic Intifada in March, Soros has become a demonised figure for the fascist right around the world, so it is to be expected that Hopkins would jump on the bandwagon.
While there are no doubt valid criticisms of Soros (or, indeed, any billionaire – no one should be allowed to have that much money to themselves, in my view) the far-right’s attacks on Soros do not fall into this category. The attacks are more often than not openly anti-Jewish.
A government campaign against Soros in Hungary – his country of birth – was openly anti-Semitic, while right-wing attacks demonise him as a global “puppet master”, a typical Nazi stereotype of the fictional Jewish conspiracy to control the world.
All of which puts the lie to fascists like Hopkins and their claims to be concerned about anti-Semitism. Hopkins only raises the word to attack Muslims and the Labour Party on spurious grounds.
Her behaviour continues the trend of the global far-right today embracing Zionism. On one level, there’s little doubt that the attraction is sometimes a shallow one – towards Israel’s long record of mass-murder targeting a majority-Muslim population.
Yet it goes deeper than that. Israel is viewed by these racists as “a villa in the jungle”, to quote former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak – it is seen as the frontier of “Western civilization” against the barbarous Muslim hordes.
The fact that Barak was the leader of the Israeli Labor Party only goes to show how little supposedly left-wing Zionism differs from the right-wing Zionism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While tactics and strategies differ, at the end of the day both are simply different wings of the same movement, with the same end goal – the establishment and preservation of a European Jewish settler-colonial movement in the majority non-Jewish country of Palestine, against the wishes of the indigenous people.
Fascists have always admired such racist movements, so much so that even such an openly neo-Nazi figure as Richard Spencer can call himself a “White Zionist”. Katie Hopkins, then, was in a way correct when she stated on Israeli TV that Israel is her “natural home”.
Earlier this month, Hopkins appeared on an Israeli TV channel openly calling for the expulsion of the almost seven million Palestinians who now live in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The i24 News channel shamefully gave this fascist a platform to call for Israel to “remove the people who don’t belong here” – the indigenous people of Palestine. This must be understood as a call for ethnic cleansing, though it more likely constitutes incitement to genocide.
Like other fascists, Hopkins has also propagated anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, tweeting that “Soros NGOs” are to blame for critical media coverage of Israel. This was a reference to Jewish billionaire George Soros, who has donated billions to his foundations supporting liberal and anti-communist causes.
As I explained in a feature for the Electronic Intifada in March, Soros has become a demonised figure for the fascist right around the world, so it is to be expected that Hopkins would jump on the bandwagon.
While there are no doubt valid criticisms of Soros (or, indeed, any billionaire – no one should be allowed to have that much money to themselves, in my view) the far-right’s attacks on Soros do not fall into this category. The attacks are more often than not openly anti-Jewish.
A government campaign against Soros in Hungary – his country of birth – was openly anti-Semitic, while right-wing attacks demonise him as a global “puppet master”, a typical Nazi stereotype of the fictional Jewish conspiracy to control the world.
All of which puts the lie to fascists like Hopkins and their claims to be concerned about anti-Semitism. Hopkins only raises the word to attack Muslims and the Labour Party on spurious grounds.
Her behaviour continues the trend of the global far-right today embracing Zionism. On one level, there’s little doubt that the attraction is sometimes a shallow one – towards Israel’s long record of mass-murder targeting a majority-Muslim population.
Yet it goes deeper than that. Israel is viewed by these racists as “a villa in the jungle”, to quote former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak – it is seen as the frontier of “Western civilization” against the barbarous Muslim hordes.
The fact that Barak was the leader of the Israeli Labor Party only goes to show how little supposedly left-wing Zionism differs from the right-wing Zionism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While tactics and strategies differ, at the end of the day both are simply different wings of the same movement, with the same end goal – the establishment and preservation of a European Jewish settler-colonial movement in the majority non-Jewish country of Palestine, against the wishes of the indigenous people.
Fascists have always admired such racist movements, so much so that even such an openly neo-Nazi figure as Richard Spencer can call himself a “White Zionist”. Katie Hopkins, then, was in a way correct when she stated on Israeli TV that Israel is her “natural home”.